Page 85 of Charming Artemis

“You were there?” Artemis asked.

Mater shook her head no. “But wewereinvited.” To Mr. Layton, she said, “I am not wrong, am I?”

“I don’t believe you are.”

Artemis’s gaze had settled firmly on Mr. Layton. The hope in her expression was almost painful. “Are you he? My Papa, I mean?”

Mr. Layton leaned forward and took her free hand. “No, Artemis. I am not.”

“Then who?”

Gently, quietly, and with emotion, he said, “Lucas.”

Artemis froze. Charlie’s eyes darted to Mater, hardly believing what he was hearing.

“He passed through Heathbrook in 1803 on his journey home from visiting Lord Aldric,” Mater said. “He told me about a stop he made and a little girl he’d spent an afternoon with, attempting to return her to her family. He’d clearly come to love her during their brief time together. He worried and wondered about her, afraid she would get lost again with no one to find her. From that moment forward, whenever making a journey north, he did so through Shropshire, no matter how out of the way.”

Artemis was shaking her head in small, quick movements.

“He asked Digby to pass through there whenever possible”—Mater indicated Mr. Layton—“but without knowing your actual name, finding you was all but impossible. He would have asked Lord Aldric, but that gentleman doesn’t always utilize finesse in such matters, and Lucas didn’t wish to cause you or your family distress by drawing attention to his notice of you. I know Lucas saw you a few more times; he told me he did. He ought to have asked your name, but he likely feared doing so would scare you away. His Princess was seldom from his thoughts.”

Artemis pulled her hands free and wrapped her arms around her middle, not looking at any of them.

“You moving away didn’t interfere with seeing him,” Mr. Layton said. “Youdidn’t cause your separation from him.”

“We didn’t attend your sister’s wedding because we were still in mourning,” Mater said. “Lucas died in 1805, before you left Shropshire.”

Artemis stood, still embracing herself. She hadn’t the look of one pleased to have solved a life-long mystery. She looked almost angry.

“You’re wrong.” She shook her head again and again.

“I truly don’t think we are,” Mater said softly.

“No.” Her voice snapped. “He is someone else. He has to be.”

Charlie rose as well, unsure what he ought to say or do. He was reeling as well. “I know your connection to this family has not always been a pleasant—”

“My Papa is someone else,” she said firmly. “He is out there somewhere. I know he is. And he loves me, and he has been looking for me. Just as I’ve always known he was. He is. I refuse to believe he—” Emotion broke her voice. “That I—” Tears began to pool in her eyes. “He is the only reason I haven’t felt utterly alone for fifteen years. He is still out there somewhere, Charlie. I won’t believe otherwise. I can’t.” She spun about and ran from the room, leaving behind an utterly bewildered Charlie.

They’d found the gentleman she’d been looking for, and he had proven to be none other than Charlie’s own father, something he himself was struggling to wrap his mind around. But finding Artemis’s Papa and discovering he was gone, and had been gone through all the years she had searched for him, had only hurt her further.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

For the second night ina row, Artemis sat in her night rail on the floor of the dim drawing room long after everyone had gone to bed, her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs, looking into the face of the late Earl of Lampton.

She had studied him in the large family portrait these past nights when she ought to have been sleeping, trying to force his face to grow familiar to her, all the while hoping it never would. So long as he remained a stranger in her memory, she could tell herself that Mater and Mr. Layton had been mistaken. Her Papa was still somewhere, looking for her and loving her. She could still have hope that she would find him, and he would embrace her as he had before, that all the dreams she’d had of him could still come true.

But in her heart of hearts, she knew they were not wrong. They’d known too much she hadn’t told them. And all she’d learned of Charlie’s father matched what she’d known of her Papa.

Looking into his kind eyes and seeing the way his family gathered around him in the large portrait, love and togetherness emanating from them in palpable waves, she knew this was the man she’d been looking for. She knew it, and it shattered her very soul. There was no one left in the world who loved her the way he had. He’d sworn he would keep coming back. She had always assumed he’d kept that promise. But it wasn’t true. He had left her, just as everyone else had.

“Charlie told me you had been leaving your room at night.” Linus’s voice broke the silence of her grief. “He’s worried about you, you know.”

Artemis didn’t look back at him. “Please leave me be, Linus.”

“I can’t do that.” He sat on the floor beside her. “You see, I promised our brother before he died that I would look after you and Daphne. I am not one to break my promises.”

She dropped her eyes to the empty fireplace. Seeing Papa’s face, knowing he was gone, was too painful. But neither had she the strength to look at Linus and see pity there.

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